


moonlight.

by bloodletters



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Gore, read at your own risk i suppose it's not a happy time in here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-08-01
Packaged: 2020-07-28 12:11:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20063821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodletters/pseuds/bloodletters
Summary: He learned long ago that an assassin adapts to making hard choices.





	moonlight.

Garlemald was keen on holding Doma by whatever means necessary. When the decision was left to the Scions, they decided that subterfuge and sabotage would help speed up wins for the Resistance. That is where Weyland came in, his talents as a lifetime spent as an assassin once again coming in handy here just as they did in Ishgard. He knew what to expect with magitek. What he hadn’t counted on was the Empire growing desperate. 

Desperation breeds depravities that only the lowest can ever think of. 

He’d seen it first hand. Wartime in Doma was a perpetual scape of suffering and carnage. 

Weyland awakes in a haze of churned earth, ash, and smoke. A sharp pain radiates from his left arm. It is hard to move. Hard to think. Hard to even breathe. There is a dull ache in his head, ears ringing from the aftereffects of the concussive blast he’d been trapped in. He ignored the moans of the dying and the wails of the living. Slowly, Weyland tries to struggle to his feet, only to be pinned down by the pain in his left arm growing even sharper. He didn’t just _ feel _like he couldn’t move-- He actually couldn’t. 

Weyland clears his swimming vision, sparing a glance to his left arm.

It is trapped beneath a large hunk of unidentifiable metal. Jagged edges pierce into his bicep and forearm, tearing through flesh and sinew and bone. He is missing his left ring finger, a bloody nub in its place. The skin on the top of his hand has been ripped clean off in some areas, exposing the muscle to the cool night air. And he can feel it. Gods, could he feel it. Were he not a stronger man, he would be wailing in agony. But no sound rises from the assassin. He hazards to twitch a finger, and is met with pain firing off every nerve in his body, making his back arch against the wall, a sharp gasp escaping his lips. 

“_Fuck_,” he hisses. 

Unsure if the Garleans had abandoned their position after that mishap or if they remained, Weyland weighed his options. He could sit here and bleed out, but that’d take Gods know how long. He could wait for the enemy, should they remain, to come and finish him off. He could wait for the villagers to either put him out of his misery or attempt to save his life. None of these were options that were likable or even viable. He needed to get back. Needed to tell the Scions. But how...

A familiar glint of steel catches in his peripheral vision. 

Weyland stares at the blade, his sword, just within reach. The idea that dances across his mind is immediate. A new avenue of pain, to be sure, but what was suffering in comparison to finishing your duties? Slowly, he reaches over, feeling the strain of his left arm’s snapping bones and tearing muscles, grotesque clicks and pops coming out of the mangled appendage. He ignores them, gripping the hilt of his longer sword in his right hand. He brings it up to his face, inspecting it. Silently, he hoped it still had its edge. With little ceremony, he flips the sword in his hand, blade up, underneath his left. He pauses. For the first time in his life, Weyland prays. Not for himself. But whomever may be around to witness the horrific act he’s forced to commit in the name of survival.

“Twelve. _Hydaelyn_,” his voice is barely above a whisper. “Don’t look at me as I do this.”

Hesitation gone, Weyland uses all his strength to bring the blade up. 

The pain is unlike anything he’s ever felt in his life. 

It bites through his armour as if it were made of parchment, sings through flesh and muscle as if gliding through water. Rends through his bone as if it were naught but fabric. He feels every nerve in his body light as if they were aflame, and if he gasped or screamed, it was wholly involuntary. Blood runs warm as it spurts from the new cut, oozing slowly. Weyland pants, breathing hard, his mind swimming through a haze of pain and agony. He lights a fire in his hand, bright and hot, and presses it to the wound with thought of little else but to stem the tide of blood. Another agonized groan tears itself from his throat before he can stop it. For a while, he just sits there and pants. 

Finally, the assassin labours to his feet. 

He is uneasy on his legs, woozy from the pain and loss of blood, but his adrenaline forces him to steady. Numbly, he spares a glance to his mangled limb, still macabrely pinned to the wall, limp and damaged. Undoing the sash from his waist, Weyland maneuvers it around the bleeding wound of his lost extremity. One he’s sure it’s tightly secured--_ any _ kind of tourniquet would be better than **none**\--he procures his longer blade from the ground where he dropped it. He stares at it, the sight of his own blood staining the pristine black steel red under the moonlight, before he flicks it off and returns it to its sheath on his back. 

Staggering into the night, Weyland begins his trek back to the Scions’ headquarters in Doma.

**Author's Note:**

> my literal first fic on this website and it's my oc hacking off his own arm. this is painfully on brand for me.
> 
> i possibly might make this a little mini series if there's interest? i dunno just yet.
> 
> two things about weyland: "weyland" is not his real name as it is a pseudonym (and ultimately the only name he knows), and he is also originally from doma, but wound up in ul'dah when he was a baby. maybe i'll post more stuff about him on here later if people want to hear about this asshole.
> 
> another side note: this fic is called "when your DPS sucks" in my google docs.


End file.
